Dear Mom

So my mom walked over to my house today. As usual, she was both happy and harried. It’s her resting state. “My car won’t start,” she said. “Can I borrow yours?”

“Sure,” I said.

“Grammy, you have burrs in your hair,” the Princess pointed out, removing them one by one, like a little gorilla picking fleas off an elder.

“I know,” Mom said. I think she was enjoying the social grooming.

“How did you get burrs in your hair, Mom?” I asked. I know her well enough not to ask why she hadn’t combed them out—as I said, harried and happy. She was no doubt on an urgent mission and hadn’t yet had time to address the fauna in her hair.

She gave me a tolerant look. “I was walking because my car wouldn’t start. I just told you that.”

I pictured it, her Subaru broken down somewhere, my beloved 70-something year old mom, wandering through the wilderness, lost, struggling through the snow in her bright blue coat, fending off coyotes. “Poor Mom! Where did you break down?”

“I didn’t. I just told you, the car won’t start.”

“So where is it?”

She gave me a puzzled look. “It’s in the garage, dummy.”

Her garage is attached to her house.

“I don’t understand,” I said, because I’m the logical one in this relationship. “Where did you pick up the burrs?”

“I had to go around the front of the house because I forgot to open the garage door, and there’s a bush that overhangs the walk, and it had burrs on it and I had to fight my way through it.”

“Why didn’t you walk around the bush?” I asked.

She paused. It was clear this option hadn’t occurred to her. “Are you going to blog about this?” she asked.